City Council - public_hearing

Thank you. Oh yeah. I get it.

I pay for a plan. Thank you. I'm sorry.

Thank you. Oh, yeah. Hi. One second. One second.

So I'm going to take a break.

This meeting of the Eau Claire City Council will come to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

City Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Brewster? Here. Greger?

Here.

Johnson? Here. Kimboga? Miller?

Here.

Orth?

Here.

Otto? Here. Reed? Here. Schoen?

Here.

Serrano? Here. Werthmann? Here.

Thank you City Clerk and welcome everyone to the Monday July 13th meeting of the Eau Claire City Council. So we have copies of the agenda in the back of the room for anyone who needs those and just to kind of walk folks through how it'll work tonight is that we have one public hearing and three public discussion items that we'll go through and then we'll have time for a public comment period. And then after that, the council will go into closed session on an item. And for the way each of the agenda items will work is that staff will present on the item. And then council members will ask questions. And then we'll open it up to public comment. And we have sign up sheets in the back of the room that folks can sign up for individual agenda items to speak on, as well as if you want to do the public comment period as well. And we'll prioritize those folks that sign up, and then we'll open up to the chamber. If you didn't get a chance to sign up, you'd be welcome to speak at that point. You'll have up to four minutes to speak, and there's a lighting system at the front that will show a green light for the first three minutes, and then when you have one minute left, yellow for that minute. And then I'll start flashing red, which will mean you'll need to wrap up your comments and your four minutes are up. And it's possible that a council member or two will have a question for you. So feel free to stay at the podium for a couple seconds to make sure to check for that. If you do not want to speak tonight or want to provide additional comments, there's other ways to reach out to the city council. There are blue comment forms in the back of the room that you can leave at the back table after filling them out. Or you can email council members. You can find emails on the city website. There's also an electronic comment form on the city website where you can find the city council in the same site that you can find the council packets. and that's at EauClaireWI.gov. So just to get started here, we'll start with agenda item number one, public hearing on an ordinance amending the official zoning map for the western portion of 1718 Warden Street, Z176426, and we have our community development director, Aaron White, to present on this item. Thanks for joining us.

Good evening, Council President Greger and council members. The first item here we have is a zoning map for Warden Street. The petitioner is requesting to do a rezone of a space from neighborhood residential to corridor commercial space. The space identified there is the space being impacted is the yellow portion. It's actually the western part of the yellow portion is the property in question that would look to be rezoned. The red line represents the 30 foot radius that were notified as to a zoning change per code requirements. The green space identified there is the parcel that they are looking to rezone from neighborhood residential over to corridor commercial. As you can see, there's corridor commercial in the surrounding areas to the north, to the west, and as I skip a little further to the east, the rest is neighborhood residential, and that drifts to the south. A comprehensive plan identifies this area as that transition area moving from commercial into residential uses. The narrative of that portion of zoning request is about 0.19 acres to replace existing base course gravels in that site. To clarify, the applicant is a commercial business, CCS Services LLC. They have been operating and parking commercial vehicles in that yellow area. in violation of the LDO because it is unimproved surface and is commercial vehicle parking in a neighborhood corridor section. So that is not allowed under our current code section. Neighbors have complained of issues of dust, of traffic cutting through from one street area to the other, cutting through that parking lot area, and also some drainage issues. Staff sent out notifications, and the zoning change is the first step in what will be required steps to rectify the issues that are occurring. Again, the area currently is a base course gravel, which is looking to be replaced with installation of concrete parking area. Part of the improvement they're also looking to do is put in full fencing surrounding the area, which will cut out the area from that parking lot being able to access Warren Street to the north. They will only be able to move in and out of that parking area from the existing commercial structure to the west. And any grading and drainage for hard surface parking will require drainage and grading plan to be approved as well. The owner of the residential lot they're looking to change the portion of the zoning floor is also owned by the commercial business CCS LLC. They are looking to carve that off and they rent the remaining space. The remaining space is more than enough to meet the minimum lot size according to our LDO. So what they're looking to do again is to rectify conditions that are currently not meeting code in terms of operation. Flipping forward to the next page, a little closer look. Here's what you can see is some of the conditions that are in the existing space, facing west from the Warren Street and the residential parcel. Here's facing from the commercial space, facing east, looking into that parking area that, as you can see, is unsurfaced and is commercial parking in nature, and facing southward within that parking area. This is a concept of what they look to do to rectify the nonconformities and the use. The gray model area, the darker gray area, is the proposed concrete. If you look at this space, they will tie into the existing apron that's there on the left-hand photo and pave into the lot spacing after they meet and provide the drainage plans appropriate for the project. The fencing will go around the exterior. There's a green hatched area in the southern part. That's where they intend to implement stormwater retention. Again, they'll have to submit plans for that as part of this renew. They are looking to do the CSM and do approval of a site plan after the zoning. So these will be the next steps they'll come forward. That means that they will be administratively approved should this rezoning go forward. they would then bring forward the csm for approval administrative approval and then bring forward the site plan for administrative approval as well there are a number of conditions that will have to be met in order to receive approval and the packet included a finding of facts on the space Applicant will have to submit a complete application The request will have to be consistent with city comp plan land use and growth management chapter objective to figure 2-1 Plan land use map with designation of the properties to both low density residential and commercial Third finding in fact the proposed zoning of corridor commercial allows for the land use such as future improved parking to be permitted to this use and as principal use Condition four, currently the unimproved parking lot surface is in violation, surfacing materials in a condition to improve the lot with a hard surface such as concrete or asphalt. They want to prevent further commercial parking and activities on 1718 Warden Street. A condition of the approval is that the through access to the north of Warden Street will be terminated. So they will not be able to exit in and out of that parking lot from anywhere other than through the commercial space that ties into the commercial business. The future site plan will be reviewed by staff at a later date under intermediate redevelopment criteria and will need to follow the LDO as it relates to, but not limited to, the parking lot setbacks, designs, privacy, fencing, screening, and as always, they will also have to submit a grading and drainage plan to engineering. At this point in time, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Director White. Are there any questions from council? Okay. Oh, Council Member Serrano.

Thank you, Council President Greger. Director White, you said, I may have misheard it, but that this, the eventual plan or the comprehensive plan says this would eventually be moving to residential?

No, this is defined as a transitional area within the comp plan. This is an area where you start seeing commercial transition into types of residential housing. So it is a use that's defined within the comp plan. This is a transitional use area seeing kind of a lighter commercial use shifting into residential.

But the idea of this zoning change, it's kind of long term. It's not like some temporary idea.

Correct. Correct. This is to get them in compliance with the LDO. They are currently out of compliance in their use of that space. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Serrano. Any other questions from council?

All right.

I think we can move on to the public hearing. Thank you, Director White. So first on my list on the sign up for agenda item number one, Is Jeff, is it Reby? All right. Thanks for joining us.

I am Jeff Reby, and I own CCS Services. We do heating and air conditioning, and that's the business at 1717 North Claremont, immediately to the west of the area we're talking about. Mr. White did a beautiful job of describing exactly what we want to do. We're happy to bring it into compliance. We want to put concrete in. We want to park down there. Our plan for the east portion, the 1718 Warden Street, is to just keep it as a rental property indefinitely. so that's okay it's simple i guess that's pretty much what we're trying to do okay i feel like it's a nice place to park it's a little bit secluded um so it's a kind of a secure place i guess we like it okay well thank you so that's all there really is for all right well thanks for coming up um we can

I don't think there are any questions from the council at this moment, so we can move on to the next person, but thanks for joining us. The next person I have on my list is Mark Erickson

Good evening, Council President Garrett and fellow council members. I'm Mark Erickson with Everyday Survey and Engineering. Thank you, Mr. Director White, for the... bringing this up to speed with everybody here. Yes, this is essentially a three part project. One is the rezoning, two would be a CSM to remove land from 718, the single family residence and connect it to 717 and then make the lot compliant with all the zoning code that it would be one contiguous lot under one zoning, one use. And the third thing would be then the site plan approval for grading and drainage and all the other LDO requirements necessary. So really appreciate your time and consideration on this. He is looking to make right. We will be working diligently with engineering and developing a plan for drainage. There is an existing pond out there, but it's warrantied looking at for further investigation of how we can improve it. The impervious surface difference from, granted, non-improved impervious surface gravel today but it is compacted essentially as great as asphalt or concrete would be is almost the same size as what we're proposing to put down for a functional concrete employee parking area great thank you thank you yeah thanks for joining us don't appear to have any questions from council so all right take care all right next on my list is uh dale rapinski

Welcome. Hi.

I prepared something. I've been eating this man's dirt for five years, literally. He's been skid steering, killing trees, burning trees that whole time. And now I'm being fed dirt by the plan commission by approving this. I hope you don't follow suit. Nobody who works in City Hall would want this next to them. Absolutely not. He has lied to police saying he's had all permits to do this. He's lied to neighbors saying it was an employee parking lot. He lied to the plan commission just last Monday. Said he doesn't go through the REACH property and if anybody has questions I can show you what I mean by the map. Just last Monday, two trucks and cargo trailers right past our houses and through the reach property. Not even an hour before the meeting last Monday. Then his wife drove through same day to pick him up, drove back through again. And of course he had told the plan commission, we don't go through there. He stated his son driving through the Warden Street property all the way to the commercial side, all the way through the dirt with a big truck and trailer. He said that was a father-son thing. Well, yeah, it is kind of a father-son thing. Also a wife and others have been driving through there. He raised neighborhood property taxes by paying 20,000 over asking price of 1718 Warden Street. He has also, with this whole situation, deflated my property by tens of thousands of dollars. I'm at 1706, right next door. His operations have flooded my fence and shed. His lighting lit my daughter's bed and bathroom and my whole backyard. I've been dealing with noise from reverse beepers for five years. My house and garage are dirt inside and out, just covered. I can't even enjoy my backyard anymore. It's as though he's being rewarded for ignoring codes and ordinances. He knew he couldn't be doing this without proper permitting. He absolutely knows. He's got a commercial business. He probably pulls permits almost daily, I would think. If you should approve this, and I beg that you not, I would ask for absolutely no gate between the two and a connection to City Storm. His ditch idea is there's no way it can work. Besides that, that puts my fence standing in water. With that much runoff from the commercial side and this new parking area, there's no way that little ditch is going to handle that kind of water. He's proven he doesn't play by the rules over and over and over, and he is going to continually push the boundaries from here on out. Thanks.

Thank you. We have a question from Council Member Mboga.

Thank you, Council Member. Thank you for being here. You know, in life, sometimes we have differences to people, but as a neighbor for DCC, have you reached out to him and tried to talk to him about your issues to him?

I'm having a hard time hearing and understanding.

Have you talked to your neighbor about these issues?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

I've talked to the plan commission. I've talked to the city attorney's office. I talked to John Gettinger. I talked to Jill Christensen. Everybody, he can't do that. But has anybody moved to stop him? Absolutely not. Who's going to cover my deflated property values and my overpayment of property taxes? Who's going to wash my house?

Well, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Council member Miller.

I think you come president. Thank you. Mr. Penske just for you said you're at 1706. Are you the house just to the south of the property in question? Correct. Okay. Absolutely. I want to see where your house is in location So at the back area of your home is the one that is budding the area in question here. Is that correct?

Yes You can see by the maps. I mean how much dirt it's just It's just insane

So we're going to try to get the document camera.

This is all there. But everybody around us, these three houses, which his is the first one, mine the middle one, and Nate Schultz over on this side, there's no way that that can drain. With that much water coming in there, there's no vegetation to soak the water up. And it all heads to me. And I have had water in my shed several, several times. And like I said, my fence just sits in water. If this should happen to pass, I would also ask for a 10 foot fence. Solid fence, like pole barn steel.

We have another question from this one from Council Member Brewster.

Thank you, Council President. I was wondering if you could explain the traffic patterns with regard to reach. I was obviously at the plan commission, but some of the others might not understand what you're referring to.

Does this work?

Yeah, it is working, yeah.

Okay. They come past my house right through here on Warren Street.

I'm sorry, if you can see on the screen where you're, if you could try to center that in the screen.

You can see your document on the screen overhead. Right.

So if you just try to center it, we can see it better on all of our screens here.

Turn it.

Like this?

I think if you move it to your.

Hey, Billy, if you could help center that, please. Thank you, Billy.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, then this way? And now it's facing north-south, yeah. Okay.

So they drive through this way, and then through here, this is REACH property, and they drive around through this way and to the commercial. This fence has been open all year, the gate, and they continually were driving through there every time, just dust just flying. And no regards, you know. They have reverse beepers, they're backing up in here all the time. I listened to a skid steer beeping for five years. It's... It's kind of crazy that this is even still going on, being that he just had no regard for codes, ordinances, neighbors, anything. It's all about Jeff Reby.

Thanks for joining us. We'll move on to the next speaker, but thanks again.

Thank you.

So our next speaker for the public hearing is Nate Schultz.

Thank you. Yes, hello city council members. Thanks for listening to members of the immediate community. My address is 1624 Warden Street. and it's just the next one further south from Dale. Yeah, right there, exactly. And so for me, I'd prefer that the rezoning be denied and that residential property be returned to a residential condition. you know, grass, maybe trees or something that would absorb the water and reduce the dust because two of the main concerns are the water as well. And I know there's probably a plan in place for that, but so my property is, Dale's property is lower than mine and my property is even a little bit lower yet. So if there is all that runoff from the, the hard surface parking lot, if it doesn't all go somewhere out to the storm sewer, for example, then it'll travel through his property and then mine's even lower. And then main concern is my shed that's closest to the north side of the property. is lower than all of that so that's the main concern is getting water into there so the water is a big thing and then of course also the traffic as was mentioned going primarily on warden street back and forth and it's usually a high rate of speed going past there so part of it's a safety issue for people that have children grandkids next door and there's kids quite a bit in that neighborhood so that's part of the concern as well so that would be that would be my request that it is returned to residential property and maintains that residential neighborhood feel also and what else Yeah, so and if it has to be passed, if there's no other option that it goes through, I'd like to know what the checks and balances are that are gonna ensure that it stays in compliance. There isn't a gate put back in, there isn't the commercial vehicles parked there in the residential part of the property, and then also traveling back and forth through reach and back and forth up and down Warden Street.

Looks like we have a question from Councilmember Brewster.

Thank you, Council President. Have you lived there since before this was used for this, or has it been like that the entire time you've lived there? I've lived there since 2001. 23 years. All right. And so you were there before this parcel started being used as a parking lot? Yes. And I guess my question is with the water thing, has it gotten worse because of that?

I have seen water, standing water in the back during heavy rains. You know, that's the main concern, heavy rains or heavy snow melt. It hasn't flooded my garage yet, but it's a potential concern.

But was it like that before it was used as a parking space there?

No. Okay. And being that it's a little bit gravel, it probably soaks in some. If it becomes fully asphalt, that would amplify the runoff.

More so than gravel. Do you get also the dust? I do see some of it, yeah.

Not as bad, but there is some of that as well. Thank you. All right. It looks like we have another question from Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Mr. Schultz, for being here. So it sounds like both you and Mr. Rapinski have concern about water, which would not be addressed in the current proposal here. However, the other two items, the traffic and dust, do you think going the property is better than than i do that enclosing those three sizes only open to the business and also having a paved surface would those probably take care of the dust and the traffic issues um not you know leaving the water issue a separate do you think that would help with those two situations i think there's a potential that it would help on the dust if it is paved for that issue by itself

but that would be if and only if they no longer use the residential property as a commercial parking daily in and out throughout the day.

So the residential property that's not highlighted in the green that's just next to the street, you're saying that they also use that property for commercial parking as well? Yeah. I see.

OK. I didn't quite understand that portion.

OK. So that would be a separate concern aside from the portion undergoing the resorting consideration. I see. OK. Thank you.

Councilmember Mboga has a question for you.

Thank you. You did speak about checks and balances. Yes. So what do you, which are, which checks and balances do you want them, if even the City Council body passes? Yes.

Correct, yes, good point. If it does passes, it would be what would ensure that one, two, three years from now, that gate isn't put back in. Who's gonna know whether it gets, I mean, we will, but what are we gonna be able to do about it? Probably not much. And if the residential property continues to be used for parking commercial vehicles,

what's gonna stop that or prevent it sure we brought the complaints forward yes not other than

They let us know that notices have been sent out, mailed out to the residents and the commercial address.

All right, it seems like that's the end of the questioning. Thank you for joining us.

Am I allowed to add anything?

I just want to make sure to see if there's anyone else that has... Anyone else from the gallery that hasn't spoken yet that would like to speak? So is there anyone else in the gallery that would like to speak to this agenda item that did not sign up on the list?

Okay.

So I will allow you to speak one more time, but only for a minute at most.

I mean, this is really affecting property values, especially mine being right next door with, with the noise, the, the, the site pollution, everything. I mean, he's got stuff piled up all over outside. Um, he's only going to get worse. He's, he's proven over and over that he's not going to comply. He's just, he's going to do whatever he wants. So, um, You know, we're here today for parking. What is it next year? And, you know, I'm tired of getting flooded and I'm tired of the noise and I'm tired of the dirt and my property value taking a huge hit. And I guarantee you, not one of you would want this in their backyard. Thanks. Thank you.

All right. So unless there's anyone else from the gallery who would like to speak, we'll move on to agenda number two. And that is a public discussion item. This is a public discussion of the Riverbend Redevelopment District and the Core Reinvestment Redevelopment District proposed by the Redevelopment Authority. And we have our Community Development Director, Aaron White, to present.

Once again, I'm here to do our first of our public discussion pieces in regards to the proposed redevelopment districts, the Riverbend Redevelopment District and the Core Reinvestment Redevelopment District. I'm not going to hit any on functional operations of the RDA. We are doing a short work session on that tomorrow after the legislative session. So I'm going to focus primarily on the districts again. A lot of this will be recapping what was presented in June. Why is it not there? One technical moment for a second. I'll preface by kind of doing a quick overview of the two districts until we can get the visuals up. The first district, the River Bend district, functions more as what has been a traditional redevelopment district for the RDA. It is a primarily commercial industrial area that is located, should we give it a try? There we go, excellent. The first one we're gonna talk about is the River Bend District. So this district, as I was saying, is operating and tend to operate much like our past redevelopment districts have, the Cannery District, the North Barstow District, the Sioux Line, all the ones that are in those areas. It's larger than we have. This obviously is one of the largest districts we've done in the past, but there's a lot of areas to work within. The intent of this district is to help facilitate what is at the core of every redevelopment plan is to the removal of blight as defined by state statute. the in this case what we're looking at a lot of these areas is large vacant commercial spaces underutilized vacant commercial spaces a lot of obsolete street design obsolete parcel design if you go back to some of this area you'll notice regions in this space that have oceans of unused parking space this is a throwback to designs in the 70s and 80s that have been abandoned and are discouraged by modern urban design principles as highly wasteful creating heat sinks within the community does not encourage pedestrian movement through the parcels so these are some of the things that we're looking in this area the comprehensive plan also identifies this western region as future medium to high residential areas in terms of redevelopment currently its own i2 which a comprehensive plan is discouraging heavy industrial use along river corridors so that is part of what the plan is looking to to address Some of the specific call-out parcels, obviously the Shopco Center, it is the large parking lot. It's a mostly bank and strip center, so it's a highly underutilized space, uses a frontage road for access. So very old, obsolete designs in terms of platting and layout. The Sacred Heart Hospital, Now, this was unique. This plan was starting to get put together two years ago. Within the last two weeks, the notice of the 900 district was announced and what they're planning to do there. Staff has been working with the owners of that group to help facilitate the redevelopment of that property and the 24-acre campus that goes with it. So it goes to show that these projects are not necessarily about what the RDA is going to do specifically, but it is also how the RDA can help Existing project or existing areas kind of redevelop themselves. Don't know what the RDA's role might be in that project, but it's exciting to see the opportunities that will be coming forward as far as that goes. As I referenced, there's a lot of industrial remnants along the Chippewa River corridor. Part of the community's plan through the comp plan is to better engage the public to river spaces. So part of what we can do is look at how we can better provide access and engagement to the Chippewa River as it runs through from Short Street all the way over to past the sauna tank space on the south side of the Chippewa Riverbank. And part of what an RDA does is once the districts are approved, they can start doing feasibility studies. They can do determinations of what's occurring in those spaces and help define and redefine what can happen in those long-term plans. And then work with property owners to see how they can execute and move some of those long-term concepts or plans forward. So those are the, again, the basics that we're looking to do within this district. Um, I believe we've got, uh, yep. Conditions that, again, that we're looking to address poor pedestrian connectivity, uh, nonconforming uses identified within the C comp plan, um, outdated and out designed obsolete, um, platting and street design work in the, within this area and some underutilized spaces. Before I kick to the next, I'll be happy to answer any questions in regards to the Riverbend District. I will point out there is a little bit of residential in this space on the very southeast corner of that property. It's what's adjacent to Shopko. Again, it's in that space. There's nothing targeted in that residential. It's multifamily. It is well-run. It's well-maintained. that is not something that is being looked at in this district but it does exist within the space primarily this is almost other than that small area and the station nine five five which is a brand new multifamily um structure on the old shopko plaza space and another student resident space the metro crossing which is student housing and then there is also a senior living on the campus it was one of the former Sacred Heart spaces those are the only residential spaces within the district the rest are commercial and or industrial in nature and what's primarily the focus of this district as we've done in the past what could come back or there's certainly a lot of opportunities rda has these projects are driven by developers coming in and proposing ideas for these areas to get more detailed plans and do more planning the district has to be approved the the rda has essentially run up as far as it can without having a district created to move this forward and what this process is is to establish that it meets the criteria for the state statute and can thus be created as a district and operate under the redevelopment authority so again any questions on this district before we kick over to the broader one thank you director white we have a question from council member worthman thank you council president director white you've seen some of the conversation that we've received about this district and

The central concern being, how do we continue to have affordable or more affordable housing and units within the area adjacent to this? And you pointed out that there are some within the district. There's some residential within the district. There's also some residential. just to the south of the district and to the south, well, southeast, south central, and southwest, I believe. And so I wondered how you might respond to that question of, as we invite investment and as property values begin to increase, how do we think about those areas that are there that at this point are more affordable, but then may start to see upward pressure on affordability? And how do we think about that going into this project?

Some of that comes forward with how you lay out the districts. Obviously, we don't have a lot of specific concrete plans in here, and we may see that the district and some of these areas develop much differently. It may be more commercial corridors. We think there is the start of what might be a very interesting medical advancement district on the north side of Claremont Street from Sacred Heart moving west. So defining longer term plans, and as we did with the Cannery District, when we had the district was created and we went in and looked to actually start taking projects on in that district, we met with the neighborhoods, we met with the surrounding neighbors, the neighbor association, we met with the businesses located in there, talked to them, took their concerns what their thoughts were and made that part of the conversation how can we help bring in what the neighborhood desires and makes it a good place to live a good place to stay as projects come forward and that they look for assistance that's where the city council can once again step in and specify particular terms on that if you look at any of our most common development tools that we've used in terms of tax increment district or tax increment financing within the cannery district within paragon we've defined set aside units of affordability within the new construction as part of that there's also an opportunity within this to to correct issues that help the other areas that are not within the district when you talk about connectivity issues Crossing North Claremont and West Claremont on foot is a dangerous thing. Being able to help address that as part of the TID district and as part of that redevelopment plan can help the broader neighborhoods move through these areas. So we can look at concerns that the broader area has in certain elements within that district and define plans to support that and help those as well. making sure that every project or every developer or development has an equal chance or equal voice, has equal access to potentially doing something within these spaces, and work with them to make sure they're meeting the overall goals of the neighborhood. The comprehensive plan is still the strategic document that this district follows in terms of its guidelines and the strategic plan from the council. and I would note that in neither document do we reference a year on that comprehensive plan or the strategic plan we don't call it the 2015 comp plan so it's intended to track with the changing of the community it will be the 2015 comp plan until next year when we adopt the 2027 comprehensive plan and 10 years from there the governing document will be the the 2037 comprehensive plan. So it's intended to grow and make sure it keeps pace with the values of the community. And that's where a lot of your community input occurs is during the comprehensive plan discussions and creation and the strategic plan that comes from council.

City Attorney Nick. Thanks. If I could do an and also on top of Director White's. I think when you ask how do you use an RDA district to create more housing, you can well look at each of our last two districts. So every district is going to set up on its own. They're all going to be a little bit different. But you have the Canary and the North Barstow district, both that have a lot of similarities to the River Bend district. Areas that, again, have aged, perhaps not as well, in different ways. So North Barstow had aged... in a century sort of timeframe as opposed to this maybe several decades. But the uses had passed their usefulness. And so you're dealing with abandoned structures, underutilized structures, nuisance sort of properties in both districts. But most recently, cannery, you had, again, Abandoned warehouse space, really a lack of any housing. There was a few upper units in the north barstow before redevelopment district intervention happened. All those individuals or those few individuals that did live there were all moved voluntarily and with rent assistance. None of that is likely to occur in this district anyway. But those are the scenarios that you confronted. Take a look at where you find yourself now. You have hundreds, nearly 1,000 new dwelling units, two, certainly one already established new neighborhood. I think there's enough people living there to call it its own neighborhood in the North Barstow. It is generating substantial spinoff entrepreneurial business in that district. And it is having a substantial positive spinoff, both because of the public amenities developed and the private investment on nearby neighborhoods. I don't track myself where the North Riverfront's neighborhood is in terms of resale value, but certainly your policy call. But I would submit that it is in substantially better shape than it was 30 years ago. Their access to the amenities of Phoenix Park, the lack of an environmentally contaminated riverfront in and of itself a huge advantage. But the amenities that come with the parks and the trail system, whether it's Phoenix Park or newly, you know, sort of opened Cannery Park, whether it's the north riverfronts or a near west side area, substantially enhanced the existing owner experience and tenant experience in those neighborhoods. And then again, in the districts themselves, hundreds of new units, our studies have indicated that we need housing at all income points and then specifically through many work sessions with this council and our other boards and committees and commissions have indicated that since rent control is illegal in wisconsin the only way that we can affect at a local level the ability to develop new neighborhoods with more affordable, more inclusive housing is through contractual means. So through means like a redevelopment district, you can now contract at least with willing developers who are wanting to come into your area to secure some amount of more affordable units. So all your agreements that you've approved and the RDA has approved over the last decade have all included a 20% units that are affordable to those at 80% CMI and an additional figure that has somewhat changed per agreement, but as many as we can at that more challenging for market rate development, but 60% CMI. And then where you can, where you can meet those fairly stringent and not nearly enough state and federal funds for truly affordable subsidized housing, where you're in a qualified census track and you can get a LIHTC project, you can get those in there. And we have one of those that is now fully occupied and so way more safe, affordable housing in the Cannery District through the EDDIE than there was before. Will it roll out exactly that way in the River Bend district? It won't because it's its own district. But it does not have housing that is going to go away. In fact, it offers opportunities for additional housing, both market rate and more affordable to the extent we can. Thank you, City Attorney Nick.

Director White, I know you want to present on the other.

I'll go ahead and move forward to the next one then. The core... Investment Redevelopment District is a much broader district. It covers a good chunk of our downtown core and moves up north to North Crossing, east to Hastings Way, comes south and cuts across, falls down along the river, and then includes a loop down that covers Shawtown. and then uses north claremont as its western boundary this district includes two qualified census tracts the one that covers the historic rental park neighborhood and half moon lake the second one is the corridor redevelopment district that runs down through our central core barstow street grand nav and down to the the end of the border there and then one prior um qualified census track the one that includes banbury place was a census track or a qualified census track up until january of this year and drops in and out as a qualified census track about every two years it's been doing that since i came here in 2018. Again, the idea of this is to create a broad enough district that the RDA has an opportunity to operate without having to constantly say, oh, it's out of our boundary, we can't do anything on those spaces. Conditions that we're looking to capture with this in there or correct in this area again goes back to a lot of scattered and obsolete Commercial and former industrial properties if you look around in some of these areas, you know, which ones they are there's locations north of Madison right in between the river and the ridge that runs up towards the the Eau Claire Academy there are spaces still just outside of the cannery district that are are kind of holdouts to some of these areas that were heavy industrial 30, 40, 50, 70, 80 years ago. And this is an opportunity to potentially crack some of those holdout uses. Also looking to do a little more in the housing sector within this area as it's broader. the idea again being to identify vacant houses spaces that are not being utilized we see reports of those we hear complaints from the neighborhoods on those throughout that district on hey this house is functionally vacant the owner lives out of state they don't live there they don't rent it the door's been kicked in people are using it for illegal activities what can the city do about it these are the type of properties that we see an opportunity for the the district to move with a more focused uh attempt to capture and kind of reclaim some of these blighted properties and bring forward you know reduce the blight maybe it's demoing a building maybe it's bringing in a new housing product that's more affordable and can offer it out as a home ownership opportunity for folks who make 80 percent median household income or even lower again intended to do this just on a piecemeal basis as properties are found throughout the district we'll use a variety of tools from the health departments to the the housing inspection survey that the housing the health department does every year with the district with a different district being done on a five-year rotation next year or i believe well i believe yeah i believe it's next year that district coming up is going to be the rental park neighborhood in that district again so we use that to help identify where our where our areas to look at where areas to focus um and looking to kind of remove these conditions. We have a number of areas that meet. The biggest thing that meet the blight is that they don't meet current building codes. They're so close together in some of these old neighborhoods that even with the zoning changes, they don't meet building codes, let alone new zoning codes. So they are legally nonconforming, which means the owners are limited on how much money they are allowed to invest in the home because it's legally nonconforming. By code, you cannot extend or increase the nonconformity. So a property that's legally non-conforming, you can't renovate your kitchen. You can't add a bathroom to it. You can't add a bedroom to it. That's all against code. So an opportunity to help a property owner who is locked into a home that they can't invest in, that they can do very little with, RDA may be a tool to help them unload that property because folks tend to not want to buy that because they'll run into the same issues the current owner does this is a tool that can help move some of these properties collectively find ways to to remove those barriers to sale those barriers to development and bring in more affordable housing projects again much of the same type of operational things that we have a lot of high-level concepts once the district is created we can start identifying properties we can start to develop more specific plans start doing community outreach to the neighborhoods to associations to their neighbors and start looking at how we can better impact and better improve the condition and stabilize some of these neighborhoods that have been declining Again, going back to conditions to address blighted vacant properties, legal nonconforming sites that are limited in investment, pockets of blighted industrial and commercial space, formal industrial commercial space. And again, one of the overlying arcing ones is public access to the riverfront. That's been a driver in the community for a number of studies in a number of years. So the RDA and the district can start investigating, well, how can we make improvements along the river corridor that better lets the public engage to the river? That's all the public engaged to the river. How can we better take advantage of the fact we're a community of two rivers and there's not a restaurant in town that you can sit along the river and eat? Maybe it's engineeringly not impossible from an engineering standpoint, but until you have a district where the RDA is allowed to start investigating and look at the feasibility, those types of studies aren't done yet. But this would be an opportunity to use the RDA as a tool to help facilitate some of those discussions. So again, I would be happy to answer any questions related to the redevelopment core district.

Thank you, Director White. We have a question from Vice President Schoen.

Thank you, Council President Greger, and thank you, Director White. You touched on this briefly, but something I'm wondering, this district that's proposed is different than the traditional RDA district, as you shared. And with a traditional district, I think it's a lot maybe more linear on how to do community engagement. It's a targeted area, and it's sort of transformative to this really specific geography. but i'm wondering if you could say more with a larger district when they're smaller projects scattered amongst the community what you envision outreach looking like to different neighborhoods or other types of outreach maybe that i'm not thinking about right now no absolutely that's a great question one of the things we can do is we start identifying a parcel that's that's say vacant

whether it's reports from neighbors or et cetera, the first thing that we can do is we can start reaching out to the surrounding neighborhoods and neighborhood association and talking about, okay, what's been occurring on this space that is not being utilized by the owner and is saying, you know, functionally vacant again. uh what would the neighborhood like to see what the you know what are they what would they anticipate liking to occur how is it impacting them these these blights or the nuisance calls or the issues that are going on there and talk to them about what we might plan to do looking at those spaces we'd also take a look at again if we're looking at trying to do say infill development with with manufacturing home with something that's being looked at by a number of communities they're much lower cost to put into a single lot infill how does that Affect or blend in with the surrounding neighbors and the surrounding properties What are the neighbors thoughts of you know showing some renderings of a space? How does you know if this were to come into your neighborhood? Do you see that as a benefit to your neighborhood or an opportunity for ownership or whatnot? So there would definitely be some opportunities to do that I think also the the locations that have a neighbor association those would be probably the first conversation is talking to the neighborhood association say here's a here's some properties we're looking at what's been the the neighborhoods associations concerns or thoughts regarding you know what's going on there currently and what could happen in those areas so there there are definitely a number of routes that we can use to reach out and and pull in public feedback and then as we start creating more formal plans more formal concepts we can take those back out to those same folks and get feedback from the public as well

Thank you. Councilmember Miller? Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director White. Kind of going off what you were just saying at the end of your previous comment, so what does this look like going forward in that the Redevelopment Authority authorized these and now are coming to Council, and if they were to be approved, And then you identify particular large areas, projects to do. Does that then each individual project has to be presented to council for individual consideration under the umbrella of the authority of the redevelopment district?

They would actually get presented to the redevelopment authority board. Once the district is established by council, projects typically will not come back to council. The board runs independently, operates independently, and makes decisions on property purchases, et cetera, from that point. Now, the times that council does have an opportunity to chime in would be, first off, it's funding. We have typically funded projects through capital improvement plan. So council definitely has a say in how they allocate the CIP funding. If it's a project that asks for additional assistance, maybe we have acquired a lot and a developer comes forward and says, hey, we want to do this, but we need some additional help from the city in this nature or this nature. Those additional requests outside the RDA's authority would definitely come back to council, and council will have an opportunity to have a say or input on those. When it comes down to just the acquisition and then the transition to resell of the land, if there's nothing else doing and it's correct zoning, it's correct usage, the RDA operates under the RDA board with a council representative, city manager, or designee as a representative, and then five additional members of the community.

So the follow-up question. So then... just from LDO and other zoning ordinances that we already have in effect, the redevelopment authority operates under those rules and are then all projects route through them except for the exceptions you just highlighted?

Absolutely. They still have to follow all the proper LDO. If it's a project that can be administratively approved, it can be. If it has to go to plant commission for certain steps, it will obviously have to do that. So yeah, anything relates to the LDO. or any type of other regulations will follow its normal procedures.

Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Any other questions from the council? Okay. Well, thank you, Director White. Thank you. And this is not an item that we vote on until two weeks from tomorrow. So we're just giving more time for public input tonight as well. So I will open up. for public discussion. And I have a list of folks that have signed up thus far. So we'll start with Susan Wolfgram.

Welcome. Good evening, Council President Gregert and members of the City Council. My name is Susan Wolfgram. I live at 550 Graham Avenue, downtown Eau Claire. In the spirit of transparency, I sit on the Plan Commission and my comments this evening represent the core team perspective of the Jonah Affordable Housing Task Force. To start, please refer to our June 9th comments that I attached to our current comments for additional context. I want to also start with making the statement that many blighted residential properties are home to some of our most vulnerable residents. On June 30th, Paul Savides and I had a very productive conversation with staff and a council rep to include protective anti-gentrification guardrails in both the river bend and core reinvestment plans. It was recommended to us at that time to send language for these guardrails and that staff would follow up on the process to include them as a potential amendment to the plan. We sent this starting point language after meeting on June 30th. We defer to staff to refine the language to fit an amendment. and the amendment is this, that the guiding principles of equitable development be included as an amendment to both the Riverbend Redevelopment District and the Core Reinvestment Redevelopment District plans to protect against gentrification, particularly in the existing and adjacent vulnerable communities. We are focusing on equitable development versus gentrification to provide a more contemporary development language while maintaining the integrity of the basic principles of gentrification prevention. These principles are high-level guardrails that can apply to any RDA development. Prevention guardrails need to be intentional, not assumed. This macro high-level piece might best be inserted in the introduction section of the plans. the guiding principles of equitable development. What is equitable development? It's a planning framework designed to revitalize neighborhoods without displacing or excluding long-term residents. It ensures that investments in housing, business, and infrastructure generate tangible economic and health benefits for the original community rather than solely catering to new wealthier arrivals. the guiding principles, protect and preserve the original community, vulnerable tenants and homeowners from displacement, encourage the participation of local and regional developers and investors, engage the impacted community early in planning and decision-making, and focus on equitable economic development by prioritizing local businesses, vital neighborhood services, and local first-time entrepreneurs, and we'd be happy to consult on further defining those. In closing, it is always a matter of our will. Those that are the most vulnerable do not show up in front of you at an open public comment period, but we hear from many of these neighbors who are too busy trying to keep their families afloat an ever-increasing climate of survival versus thriving stable housing is the foundation of family thriving let's provide intentional protective guardrails to avoid potential displacement and I appreciate your consideration of our comments thank you so much

We have a question from council member worth men.

Yes. Thank you council president Thank You miss wolf Graham for this communication and the prior meeting so The I wanted to ask you because this is what you're sharing has very real-world consequences for people and these redevelopment districts had been an important part of our, especially our core neighborhood revitalization. North Barstow, which our city attorney talked about, was a superfund site, vacant areas, et cetera. And as that was redeveloped, we saw some of the pressures of people and the rents in nearby neighborhoods adjacent to that area become less and less affordable. So you invite investment at the same time you create that kind of pressure, and in fact, I know of a number of examples of people moving out because they no longer could afford prices of rent in the North River fronts. As we think about this, How could we have done that differently? Or what are the lessons that are to be learned from those kinds of things where we would be able to do this in a way that supports the people that are already living in the area nearby to these? Because I think that's the key thing that you're asking and we need to consider. I don't think it's a matter of these are this isn't something we'd want to support, but we want to do it right. And so that's why I'm appreciative, and I hope you might be able to answer that question for me.

Well, we came and spoke many times on the cannery redevelopment, and I know one thing that we were very concerned about was the possibility of out-of-town investors coming and just buying up a few blocks of very vulnerable housing, and then that didn't happen. I think you need to provide a lens. The RDA has to have a lens. I think it also has to have a group of community members, some with lived experience, that are consulted at the time that these projects are being developed, that are actually at the table. When you look at who actually is on the RDA, There aren't folks that have affordable housing experience. There aren't community members that have that lived experience. And that provides a whole different lens when you have folks with lived experience that are actually at the table, not after the fact, But when a developer is actually coming to propose something, you know, when we talk about, you know, the word used was, you know, scalpel projects that, you know, there'll be just, you know, one project here and one project there. When you understand gentrification, you understand that it's a wave. It's the cumulative effect of all of those scalpel projects together Excuse me that then provide a wave and into the adjacent vulnerable communities. So I believe that if we Were we are all in favor of these two plans. We're all in favor of that I completely agree with attorney Nick on all the advantages What I'm saying is why would we not? want to provide a lens, something in the introduction of the plans that make us go back and look when a developer comes forward with something. Are we following these principles, okay? So yes, you know, When I drive behind Shopko and we were going to be canvassing all of those residents that live behind there, not in the newer buildings, but if you're familiar with that area and you're familiar with people that live in Imperial Circle, that live on El Dorado, those are not the well-maintained apartment complexes. Are there some that are well-maintained back there? Yes, absolutely. And I can easily see, easily see how a developer comes and offers the owner of some of those dilapidated, quote unquote, blighted buildings offers a very good price, that building is gone. And where do those people go? So I wanna say just one more thing, that a number of us were around for the Confluence Project, okay, obviously all those years ago. And when it was said that, well, there were no people displaced during that time, so I'd like to say, well, how do you know that? So I know a little piece of that is that I live right downtown and right down Graham Avenue, there were two buildings, two old buildings that had a lot of seniors living there and people with disabilities. And I like to use the metaphor of overnight, it seemed like overnight, all of those folks were gone and where did they go there was no one advocating for them where did they go we we checked in with some of them we found them some of them had to relocate outside of the county away from their support systems and their families and frankly we don't know where the rest of them go so a lot of these have a lot of these displacement events happen without our even knowing so at the very least you know i'm we are we are not suggesting a long complicated you know hand tying process for developers what we want to do is at least provide a lens to have it embedded in the introduction of the plans that you have to think about it that when a developer comes with an idea, go back to the principles. We can refine the principles. We can define them a little more carefully. We can consult on that. But be mindful of needing to go back and have protective guardrails so that we aren't displacing our most vulnerable people. It's a wave. It's not about every little scalpel project. It's the cumul, excuse me. This is what being short is the problem. It's the cumulative effect of all of these scalpel projects that then wave and turn over Shawtown too. I mean there are many potential vulnerable areas So I don't know if that answers you directly, but I hope that's I hope that's enough Thank you so much for for speaking tonight, okay.

Thank you so much everyone Next on the list is Paul Savites

Good evening. My name is Paul Savites. I live at W6741 Ash Road, Mondovi, which is in the town of Dramond, Eau Claire County. I'm the co-chair of the Jonah Affordable Housing Task Force and co-director of the Eau Claire Tenant Landlord Resource Center. I've already sent you my comments on the Riverbend Development District, and I would like to make one additional comment this evening. Regarding our recommendations to institute equitable development guardrails for the core development and River Bend development districts, I would sincerely hope that the city council members consider the importance of preserving the existing culture and community of our impacted neighborhoods. I also hope that you would recognize the importance of protecting vulnerable renters and homeowners in these neighborhoods. Preserving and renovating naturally occurring affordable housing in redevelopment areas is a low cost way of maintaining our affordable housing stock and ensuring that it will remain affordable for years to come. Preventing displacing those who live and work in a neighborhood to hold on to the supports and relationships with their neighbors that they rely on to manage and enjoy their lives. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this evening, and I also appreciate the work that you do to help build and maintain a community where all our neighbors can grow and thrive. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It doesn't appear there are any questions, but thank you for joining us. Julian Emerson is next on my list. Welcome.

Good evening, city council members and city staff. And you're gonna get in a, it must be your lucky night, you're gonna get a little bit abbreviated version of me because so much of the stuff I wanted to say has already been said. But bear with me. My name's Julian Emerson, I live at 519 Chauncey Street here in Eau Claire. I work as the grants and housing program manager in the city of Altoona, so I'm dealing with some of these same scenarios. And I'm a member of numerous committees related to housing and homelessness. I'm here tonight to speak about the Riverbend redevelopment district and core reinvestment redevelopment district proposed by the city redevelopment authority. I applaud the city for considering redevelopment of the areas that are encompassed by this proposed district or these districts. Finding ways to revitalize areas in ways that increase economic prosperity and upgrade parts of the city is a laudable goal. Redevelopment opportunities that grow the city's tax base make sound economic sense and are often necessary to retain current services and programs, as you guys know, especially when you're facing budget constraints. Such redevelopment efforts also improve available activities in a city, providing residents with high-quality living environment and recreational amenities that improve quality of life and serve to attract more people to the city. The conversation we've had so far, a city attorney, Steve Nick, told a compelling story about how that happened downtown in the North Barstow Redevelopment District. I watched that happen. I used to write a lot of stories about it. So lots of great stuff. And I too, as Susan said, I back these districts, right? There's gonna be really good stuff that can come out of this. The downside is when we do revitalization, economic revitalization, it can have the unintended consequence, as you guys have been hearing, of displacing people. It's really difficult to redevelop areas, especially given all of the high costs of building when you're replacing old, outdated, dilapidated buildings with new. It's really, really, really challenging to try and do that in an affordable manner. It takes a lot of thought. It takes a lot of getting funding from elsewhere. And it's really, I guess what I'm asking you guys as city to do as a city council and city staff is to have that as a focus to try to not displace folks when possible, right? If we just let the market do it, if we just let things go as they're going to go, people will be displaced. There are a lot of people who can no longer afford to live in Eau Claire right now. It's a rare week when I don't get one and sometimes more phone calls from folks saying, Julian, I'm losing my housing. My rent just went up $400. I can't keep in it anymore. What do I do? What are my resources? It happens a lot, and the trend is getting more, not less. So I guess I'm just asking that as you guys do this redevelopment, you have a focus on how do we not displace people and how do we include enough more affordable housing, if that's the better term, that we can still have people live in Eau Claire and anyone who's making 80% less or 60% less doesn't have to vacate the city. I don't have to get phone calls from them saying, I can't afford my housing anymore, what do we do? And Andrew, you asked the pertinent question just a minute ago, and it's really challenging. We're looking at doing a version of this and trying to revitalize actual downtown Altoona. And we recognize the challenges. There's a lot of low to middle income housing there. And how are we going to do things in such a way Can we do things in such a way that we don't risk displacing those folks? So I say this with all respect, but I think it only happens if everybody involved is really conscientious about finding creative ways to not displace folks. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing how these redevelop.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you, Mr. Emerson. No questions? All right. We have one more person who's signed up, and that is Amanda Babb. Welcome.

Good evening, Council President Gragert and members of the City Council. My name is Amanda Babb. I live at 862 East Grand Avenue. I am the program coordinator of the Eau Claire Tenant Landlord Resource Center and a core member of the Jonah Affordable Housing Task Force. I'm commenting this evening on item two, which I suppose we already know. I support the recommendation made by our co-chair, Susan Wolf-Graham, that the guiding principles of equitable development be included as an amendment to both the Riverbend Redevelopment District and the Core Reinvestment Redevelopment District plans to protect against gentrification, particularly in the adjacent vulnerable communities. I want to begin by saying that I support redevelopment. Investment in our neighborhoods, businesses, and public spaces is important, and these redevelopment plans represent an exciting opportunity for Eau Claire. But redevelopment should do more than improve buildings. It should also improve lives. The question isn't whether we should reinvest in these, invest in these districts. It's how we ensure that those investments benefit the people who already live, work, and contribute to these neighborhoods. That's why I support adding the guiding principles of equitable development to both plans. These principles are not restrictive. They don't prevent redevelopment or dictate the details of future projects. Instead, they establish a clear set of values that can guide future decisions. Those values are straightforward, protecting existing residents from displacement, encourage participation from local developers and businesses, engage the community early in the planning process, and prioritize investments that strengthen neighborhoods while creating opportunity for the people who already call them home. As someone who works in housing, I regularly meet renters and families who are already struggling to remain in our community. Many are working hard, contributing to our local economy and raising children here, yet rising housing costs continue to put them at risk of being priced out of the neighborhoods where they've built their lives. Redevelopment has tremendous potential to strengthen Eau Claire, but without intentional safeguards, redevelopment can also contribute to displacement. We don't have to choose between economic growth and housing stability. We can and should pursue both. Including these principles of equitable development simply makes that commitment explicit. It tells current residents that redevelopment is something happening with them, not to them. Ultimately, redevelopment is about more than new buildings or increased property values. It's about shaping the future of our community. The decisions we make today will influence who is able to live here, who benefits from investment, and whether Eau Claire continues to be a place where people of all incomes have the opportunity to thrive. I encourage you to incorporate these guiding principles into both redevelopment plans so that our city grows as our city grows. It grows in a way that is intentional, inclusive, and benefits both current and future residents. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So those are the only names on my list. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to agenda item number two? Okay, so we'll close the public discussion on agenda item number two and move on to agenda item number three, public discussion on the resolution approving the flexible housing fund scoring criteria update. And we have our community development project coordinator, Billy Hufford to present on this item. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Council President Greger, council members. Tonight we have before you the funding matrix that HUC decided to put together. They rewrote previous ones to allocate funding that's in the housing fund. So just a brief history. Hawk was created in 2019. The 2020 CIP was the first time housing was afforded, awarded in this way. February 21, the council tasked Hawk to come up with a process or way to distribute the money. And that's when they first decided on the scoring matrix and RFP. Since then, they've decided to continue it with awards. And it's been, this will be the second update that's happened. This one is significant rewrite from the last one. And just some projects that have been funded, Prairie Heights, the Eddy, ECMA, DRC, Community Haven House, and sojourner house gap funding. So the scoring will start with information that will be in the RFP. And these will be requirements before an applicant can submit. And many of these are based on past application periods and concerns that we received or concerns with the materials submitted. So first, there has to be a detailed project budget, including estimates. The applicants must have site control, either ownership or a MOU stating that if funded, the transaction would continue. The applicants must have detailed building and or site plans. identifying the improvements we won't do speculative projects because we could be waiting years for those those to occur rehabilitation projects funding requests for that will be for existing housing will be considered only for improvements related to health safety energy efficiency or creating additional housing units so if they were adding a unit onto a house that that would be considered Financing, unless the grant would fully fund the project, applicants must have at least 50% of the funding available either through agreements or on hand. Applicants will be required to sign a funding agreement and terms in it would include repayment if the project does not go forward. does need to be consistent with the housing study and they would need to provide a narrative explaining how it is. And we will require a pre-application meeting just to ensure code requirements and project expectations are all met. And again, these came from concerns mostly from people submitting, but also applications we received that weren't fully complete. Um, next the matrix, this could be a little tough to read. Um, I'm guessing everybody's already read it, so I'll just hit some of the points. So the first one is project priorities. This is the bulk of the points. Um, Some of the things that are highlighted on here I'll touch at the end, and there'll be a few here and there that have asterisks I'll touch as we go through this. The first two points will be up to 50, and those address vulnerable populations, which is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, and income levels. The last two questions, offering empowerment services and demonstrating commitment to low barrier housing. Total points on this is 60 and total on the application is 159. project design this again talks about the relationship to the regional housing study it has the affordability period we will automatically have one in the agreement this is if people want points to extend it beyond I believe it's 20 years that was listed in there And then the project identifies clear proposed outcomes. The asterisk, just some concerns on how that would be scored. People might have different opinions of what listed outcomes. Is it a meets? Is it exceeds? I don't know if it's defined well enough. The next one, C, project readiness. This is where we'll review a timeline that it provides a timely benefit. We would like to see these done preferably within a year. Some of the requirements and stuff is that these are gonna be pretty much shovel ready. We don't wanna have to sit and wait for projects. We want them coming to us pretty much ready to submit for permits if they get awarded. Next. Next, cost effectiveness, and that's looking at if the budget they submitted makes sense with what they're wanting to do. Matching funds, if they've raised any matching funds and how much, and then securing funds, how much they've already secured. E, the applicant experience. This is the application's complete and well-planned. I will say if an application isn't complete, we would not accept it. They will need to be complete. Applicant capacity. That one demonstrates capacity to complete the project by listing past and current successful projects. We had a question on how that would score. Is 10 projects in exceeds? Is five? Is somebody who did a house compared to somebody who did a multi-family? Just a little more direction on how that might score. And then also community support and partnerships, getting letters from the community, different agencies and stuff showing support and their capacity to implement the project. Next, number of units. The first one, unit size that meets demonstrated community need at the time of and intended construction, that it would prevent displacement. and that it's innovative. Again, what is innovated? Somebody might give five points as exceeds for a manufactured home. Somebody else might be like, no, it's got to be something new and different. We haven't seen like a 3D printed home. So I think it's a little vague on that one. Next one, this encompasses location, universal design, and green initiatives. So that would be your transportation and service proximity. Universal design can deal with ADA, but it's creating a home that's usable for somebody from the day they're born until the day they pass, that it'll be able to evolve with them. And then sustainability. I will point out the total point here and it's about 5.7% of the total score. The previous one, these three sections were 50% of the total score. They did want to reduce the score on this because they felt the housing piece of it was more important and should have the maximum amount of points. So those who remember the last one might have noticed it was a significant decrease. Finally, here's breakdown of each category and the points and the percent of them. Again, A, that section is the largest at almost 40% of the points. So going back to the ones highlighted, first, D4, percentage of other financing committed at the time. So in the RFP, unless it funds at all, we're going to require 50%. So I don't know that this question is relevant. um to to the matrix because we wouldn't allow below 50 to even consider the application unless we're funding the entire thing um f um are we had a question of what if the data that the applicant would submit shows a different need versus the matrix point um so like if i came in with an applicant i wanted to do Eight units all efficiencies I could come in and say well our Housing Authority List has over 500 people the majority of them need just single Units one bedroom or efficiency so all eight would be but I wouldn't score full points because I would only get four out of the possible and even though I show that it is a need. So I don't know if we want to reconsider that at all. I don't mind the points and how it's set up, but just a thought on that one. And then finally, we spent a lot of time discussing questions A1 and A2. They're 50% of the total scores. The points are awarded based on percentage of the units, which could cause an applicant to score higher. That is producing fewer total units and fewer total affordable units. And just I put together three examples. So the first one, if somebody is producing three total units and all three are going to be under 60% and available for vulnerable populations, they would score the full 50 points. If somebody was doing a total of 50 units and 10 of them would be available for vulnerable populations and below 60%, they would only get 12 points, even though they're creating seven more affordable and vulnerable units and increasing the overall supply of housing. And then the last one, if somebody's producing 100 units, they're dedicating 30 to vulnerable populations and below 60%, they would only score 34 points. So if all else is the same in the application, the three units would be awarded the funds based on the matrix. it yeah we we had a a lot of conversations um i'm sure jess could speak to it christina's in the audience some of the feedback was developer commitment was more important I have my thoughts, but I'll leave it at that. So pretty much, you know, with seniors being our fastest growing homeless population, let's say I live in a unit, I'm making the 800 and something, so security income, they increase my rent, you know, I might, instead of paying 30%, be like, all right, well, I guess I got to pay 40%, I'll cut back on food, that person's never going to be considered a vulnerable population because they're not homeless or at risk because they're still paying. They're just cutting back. But that is somebody we want to be able to get into more affordable, low income. Not saying they wouldn't qualify, but if somebody would fill it out that all of their units would be for vulnerable, then somebody would not qualify there. And it could be very difficult for us to validate for 20, 30, 50 years. The individuals going in there are considered vulnerable population under this definition. One last thing, this portion focuses on a subgroup of low income residents. I feel it should be available or work for all low income individuals. We know everybody's struggling, not just one group, and I think we need to focus on everybody with this. Finally, some feedback concerns raised from previous RFP process. The timeline to submit is not long enough, so we plan on increasing the timeline. We'll have educational sessions in there. We'll extend the timeline because there'll be a lot of materials that they'll have to put together and submit. Incomplete budgets we had before, and we had people, if anybody remembers 2023, individuals scrambling to put more detailed budgets together. So before we even accept it, we will require a detailed budget. Missed items and steps. We had that occur in the last one, and we had an applicant who ended up not being considered because they did miss a lot of items. So with the added education sessions, we should be able to overcome a lot of that. And then rehabilitations of existing occupied housing should be funded with care, not to create a precedent. I get a lot of phone calls from landlords wanting to know if we have money to do work on their homes, and they always threaten that they'll raise their rent if we don't. One particular one, a gentleman, said the city was going to charge him to replace his sidewalk, and he'd have to raise his rent if we didn't. So I went to engineering. I was like, hey, what's going on? How much is it going to cost? Just looking for information. There was no plans to replace his sidewalk. So then, not my current intern, but a previous one, I was like, hey, let's go out and look. There were maybe two squares. that were above the two inch thing. So only two squares of a sidewalk that was three or four town homes long needed replaced. But this guy was wanting us to pay his whole sidewalk or he would raise his rents. So I would just urge caution on rehabilitation because it could be used as a fund to not maintain properties with their own incomes. Other than that, I'll take questions.

We have a question from Council Member Serrano first.

Thank you, Council President Gragert. And thank you, Billy. What is your title these days?

Just call me Billy.

Billy. Sorry. Coordinator. Long title, Hufford. I'm OK with Billy. All right. So I looked over this in quite a lot of detail. And I appreciate all the caveats that you're presenting here. So as you're presenting all your caveats and concerns, I mean, this is on our agenda for passage tomorrow. Is it your view, your personal view, that we should pass the scoring criteria as it is tomorrow, given all of these caveats that you've presented today?

I think it could still be considered tomorrow. We do have other scoring for A1 and A2. Those would be the most concerning to me. We did present Hawk with other scoring options, but they chose this one because they want to make sure that... If somebody's developing, they're in it to make it happen. So we can bring some other scoring things, or if you want some other changes, we can look at it, bring it for tomorrow. If we feel there needs to be a delay, I wouldn't be opposed to that, to have more conversations also.

If I could just ask the follow up. So just to be clear, you think we should pass this tomorrow, or would you think we should delay it as is?

As is. I don't think it should be passed, no. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice President Schell.

Thank you, Council President Gregert. I'm wondering, so the point that you were raising, Billy, around A1, A2 scoring, my recollection, I wonder if you could help clarify this for everyone, is part of the revision process of the matrix was really understanding, Hawk understood, the prior matrix really was designed for large, new build developments to score very highly and it was almost impossible for a small project, somebody doing a rehab of a home that would keep an existing unit affordable to score very well or be competitive. And so I understand the concern here and it's something certainly we should consider, but could you just talk a little bit about kind of the intent and the conversations Hawk had around building a matrix that would allow some of those smaller projects to be competitive in the same, without creating like two separate matrixes for large projects, small projects, like this is maybe a compromise?

I think I don't know that it was a compromise a thing staff just you know presented some options and hawk made a decision and we went forward with it. You know the previous matrix had some issues because they were modeled. very much over the WIDA LIHTC application. Wasn't that smaller projects couldn't score, but a lot of the questions like that we ran into problems was like the proximity questions. So like the ECMA project, I think it was 13 different units scattered all over town. Well, how do you score proximity to places when they're scattered all over? Those were difficulties that we couldn't create an actual score. If either of the projects in 2023 would have went up against the LIHTC, the LIHTC probably would have received more funding. In my opinion, if we're producing more units, especially more affordable units, but more units overall to add to the supply, because we do still have a supply issue, I think that project should be awarded. Because units is what we need. And if we don't, then I don't know that we need to be doing this.

Thank you. Council Member Brewster. Thank you, Council President. I got a couple ones. One of the things looking through that I was a little bit surprised is that offering services did score higher, especially if we're looking at really vulnerable populations. Somebody coming in with a plan to provide services in addition to housing, that's a major expense. And I'm just wondering why, like, It just seems that five points compared to the one where you get three points for basically putting your name on the application doesn't quite feel balanced to me.

Yeah, they definitely wanted the first two points to be the most significant of the entire application. We did send this out to different parties to get an understanding of their thoughts. So one of the LIHTC providers did mention that when stuff like this is in the scoring, it makes it very difficult for them. because they're already reducing their rates enough to be able to have money to provide services or pay a contract for a company to do that, they would have to charge more. It's just unless there's additional funding that would come with that. I would argue that many of the vulnerable populations are probably already set up with an agency that would be able to go in and still provide services and stuff. If not, we could put something in the agreement that the complex does something to help people align with services that are needed.

Another question keep going with my list The other another thing that I noticed is that like perpetual longevity like affordable forever basically scores barely higher than affordable for 20 years and to me that seems like you know if this is taxpayer money that we're using for promoting affordability, we should absolutely be giving priority to forever affordability in a way that's more evident than what this would indicate.

Yeah, I would agree, because since I've been doing this position on and off, we've lost the, I don't remember the name of it, but the apartments over by Mayo, that Mayo owned, they finished their 30-year agreement, and they tore the building down. Last I heard, it's going to become a parking lot. Sure is. So I would agree, if we can get longer, that's best. Personally, I would rather see that we spend money on housing projects as much as possible, that we could then get into the housing authority. Because I think that's the best way to keep them affordable long term, unless the government implodes. There's more problems if that happens.

I just want to see if there's any other council members have questions before we go to a third one from Mr. Brewster. Do you think we could go to Council Member Miller for now? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Coordinator Hufford. Some of the council members have identified some areas that they find weaknesses or could be re-looked at here. So this came from the HOC committee that was passed by them. Were you at the meeting, and how did the vote go there? Was it kind of... Overwhelming support or kind of 50-50? What was the, you know, kind of thinking like if we are looking at this with a critical eye and maybe want to send it back for some revision, I'm just kind of curious what the opinions were of the committee before it came to us and, you know, if we give instructions on how to maybe make it a little better, how that might look like.

So that's kind of difficult to answer because there's been some changes in Hawk. You know, the team that primarily approved it, I think we had two newer people, but they hadn't been involved, and I think they were just kind of like, wow, we're a little overwhelmed with all this. The others were more... We had one developer and then Chippewa Valley home builders, but the rest were... I believe more social service focus. So we didn't have all the voices that we should have on Hawk. We're working on rebuilding that. I think at this point with some different voices, there might be some different thoughts. But I honestly don't know.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Brewster. Thank you, Council President. Last question. I'm assuming that when designing this rubric, you ran some tests on previous projects and whatever. Did you get the... Like the scores that you were expecting to and the list of past projects. Were those run through the new matrix? And were they balanced in a way that everybody was comfortable with or anything like that?

We did not do that. But I can run some of those through and bring it to you tomorrow if you'd like to see it.

Yeah, thank you. Council Member Orth.

Thank you, President Gregert. Billy, you just made a comment about the housing authority. Could you back up to, so that I understand, I think you said that it would be better to go through the housing authority. Did I understand what you were saying or not at all?

Not necessarily go through them, but if we were going to do, like, if we wanted forever affordability, then we should look at projects that could go into the housing authority because that would make it pretty much affordable forever. I don't know that we can guarantee that in any other way unless we do a contract that says that, but it was going to be around 50 years to verify it.

Okay, well thanks for all the great questions and thanks for the presentation, all the work on this, Billy. And I want to open it up to the public. So we have public discussion. We have one person signed up, Christina Thrun. Welcome.

I am the chair of Hawk, so I can try to help answer some of these questions as well, which is part of why I'm here this evening. So I do want to let you know, like to Billy's point, we have had some recent turnover in Hawk, but this has been worked on for I think like a year in the process. It was a very long time. We sent one version back, city staff sent us another version. We had a lot of conversations to some of the points you guys are talking about, especially with what Billy brought up with those points on the different size of units and things. And the discussion around the reason for the scoring, if I remember correctly, has more to do with wanting not necessarily just give the money to LIHTC projects. It was more to getting and trying to promote more of the local smaller developers to provide opportunities. There also was a more of a focus on rehab and trying, because there were some projects we've gotten before with that, that there's a lot of opportunity to try to get and nonprofits to try to look for those types of projects. And so there was a lot of conversation and there was a lot of back and forth between the service providers and the developer end of it in terms of trying to come together on this. I, from my perspective as chair, we've worked so hard on this. I would love to see this pass because we have money. We have people that are waiting for it to get this RFP out. Is it perfect? No. Is there ever a perfect rubric? No. I mean, every time you do it, we're going to make changes, right? But we know we have a pot of money that our Hawk would have loved to have spent last year But it took through to this point this year to actually try to get this done and so we'd like to start trying to move forward and trying to look for ways to There's a pot of money sitting there that we want to be able to use right and there this has been I don't even know how many meetings that we spent working on it to get to this point and Yes, there's things that you know There was give and take along the way with people in the discussions and a lot of really great passionate people that were involved in this

All right, thank you. I don't think we have any questions for you. I appreciate all your work. Oh, sorry. Council Member Otto, yeah.

Thank you for speaking with us. Just something that popped up in my mind. There was talk about 20-year versus indefinite affordability. And it seems like 20 years is effectively indefinite when we're talking about something like housing. But is there an advantage to changing that from 20 to indefinite?

I think the hard part to that is when you look at from a developer's perspective, if someone's going to come in and propose that, it does lock them in on the future of that project that it's really hard to say indefinitely, like that prevents them potentially from ever selling that project where you say, okay, we're coming in for 20 years, but let's say in 30 years, the market's changed and they want to sell that piece of property. If they try to sell it and it's deed restricted to certain, it makes it much more difficult where if there's an end game, so it might make it for some of those developers, especially if you're talking about some of the smaller projects developers are trying to get more people involved it could make it more risky so to speak long term you know so that I think is why because keep my we did have developer input in this I think that's why we landed on that but of course there is still benefit for going longer and that would be ideal I know there's been projects with the Housing Authority I personally think that there's some great opportunities with the Housing Authority that gets to that but I also understand that our Commission wants to make sure we have a fair process for any applications that come through they come through the same process whether it's a city or organization or another nonprofit or another developer that would be coming forward for the funds.

We have a question from Council Member Brewster.

Thank you, Council President. So was it decided then to just set aside the old matrix while you were working on the new one instead of passing things using the old one while you were working on the new one?

So there was nothing. It was not put out to us. Basically, from my understanding, staff didn't bring forward any opportunities point to bring forward the RFP it was this process was started quite a while ago there was some things in the in the old rubric that were a challenge but we never went through putting out another RFP or going through that whole process until this project you know was started and we started talking about but it's been three years has it been three years since we gave out funds yeah it's been three years since we gave out any funding so

OK. Well, thanks for coming tonight and for all your work. Any other members of the public that would like to speak on agenda item number three? All right. So we will move on to the public discussion item number four. This is a public discussion on the 2027-2031 capital improvement plan. Our finance director, Kitsie Winters, is here to present on this item.

Thank you. Good evening, President Greger, council. We're here for our third and final public discussion. We've had two work sessions for council and I just have a couple slides tonight. Tonight is just focused on amendments. I've received two amendments but then just for the public's knowledge amendments can be given to us tomorrow evening on the floor as well but it's a lot easier to facilitate ahead of time and a more transparent process when we can publish those and put those online amendment number one would take Let's step back there. Currently there's $250,000 in our capital improvement plan that's published on the website for an investment in flexible housing initiative. It's a new creative program in 2025. Before that you'll remember it being called affordable housing. If approved, this amendment would increase the flexible housing initiative up to $500,000 and it does remove $250,000 away from road lighting, installation and upgrades. It also does change the language of the CIP project itself in the book. So with passing this resolution, you'd be updating the language. And what that reads, and maybe I can let Council Member Schoen comment on that a little bit. This one did come from her, but ultimately it's using the matrix. and then through an RFP process that the staff can utilize and then all those contracts and items are coming back to council for council approval. The second amendment, would, we used to have the investment in affordable housing project, I believe that was around from 2020 to 2025 there. So this one would kind of reactivate that, so to speak, in my opinion. So $250,000 in funding, and that would be accomplished by reducing bridge maintenance and city buildings maintenance. Now just for perspective, we spend an average of around $2 million, it's bridging up to about million dollars on city building maintenance so but both of those reductions we spoke with Leoness the engineering director she's in charge of all of those programs we she is comfortable as a one-time adjustment due to her staffing that that won't create a significant impact on her on her department the description for the Reactivated affordable housing project would be the same as the one that was in the 2023 book for perspective. There's just a change depending on which criteria is used, whether it'll be a one to five year note or a 10 to 20 year note. So either way, there's no changing of funding sources here. And our calendar's really shortened up. It's just tomorrow for approval of that CIP. But that does roll into the operating budget for the easiest terminology, and that all is approved officially under statute in November. So with that, I don't know if there's any questions for me. And I do have a copy of the amendments for you tomorrow evening that we'll put up there for your review.

Thank you, Director Winters. We have a question from Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director Winters. You said in that first amendment there was language modifications accompanying that as well?

Yes.

Because that's not actually in the motion that's printed and put into our packets. Do you have that language that can be sent out so we can?

Yes. I think what we're going to do is update that language on the resolution. and that way we can have you vote on both of those. Sorry. So we've since updated that, so I think that'll be more helpful.

Okay, so you just send that out to council as soon as you can so we can just have that.

Yeah, we can definitely email that to you as well.

Okay, that'd be good, thank you.

We have a question from Council Member Otto.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Director Winters, for presenting this. As far as the reduction in street lighting and whatnot, I know that might be a public safety issue, but has anybody weighed in on that, like say the police department or anything like that?

Not the police department. It wouldn't be a reduction in the number of lights, per se, in this case, or the bridge funding. We do have some left from years before. I did speak with Director Ness because we do have a $5 million street budget as well. So I kind of said, which one of these would you be able to live with? And that is what she suggested. she would not have given us that option with any public safety in mind, I think. I don't know if you want to say any more, Dave?

I was just gonna add that a lot of the street lighting replacement is upgrading our high pressure sodiums to LED lights also, so it'll just delay that conversion for a year for those.

All right, Council Member Reid. Thank you, Council President. Hi, Director Winters. I was just curious, what's the difference between these two funds, the 434029 and the 434014?

The Affordable Housing Fund somewhat transitioned to be flexible when we had some ARPA funding. So the flexible housing fund Could be used for repairs and weatherization type projects, I believe. There are some of the prior projects then combined with the capital as well. So we could maximize on ARPA funding that we already had in-house. The HOT criteria is the only difference between the affordable housing, I would say, and the flexible housing. I have a description of the proposed language, which again is like the 2023. capital improvement plan So the old affordable housing was just construction of multifamily homes single-family homes to rehab homeownership So this capital and it could go, you know, it could Hold up those development agreements. I think we've had investments in the Eddie or to 13 I guess I would say over there so this would not be following the HOT criteria, it could go towards any of the programs that we have.

That was gonna be my follow up, so only one of these two accounts is connected to the RFP, the scoring matrix, all the stuff we've seen tonight, is that correct?

Yes, I believe the intent there would be to offer flexibility, so this could go right to the Housing Authority again for that permanent affordability that was discussed. You could use it to... Go with the development agreements, I guess would be my best suggestion as well So we don't have to issue so much debt, you know in that regard But I think this could go to RDA as well, I guess that's another option that just comes comes to mind Thank you vice president shown

Thank you, Council President Greger. I just had a quick clarifying question in follow-up to, I believe it was Council Member Otto, that asked a question about the sources of the funding. That would be... redistributing funds towards affordable housing investments. I just want to make sure. So what I understood is that staff identified those sources of funding. I do think you mentioned this briefly, but just for clarity, it's not postponing projects that otherwise would have happened in calendar year 27. staff identified projects that they did not believe they had capacity to implement in 27, is that correct?

That is correct. So they will take a more road focus, so to speak, within engineering, but they do have a backlog on some projects within TIDS, or we're just so busy there's a lot of them going on. Thank you. Yep.

All right, Councilmember Miller. Thank you, Council President. Director Winders. So this is a more, I have the line item here and you don't have it in front of you, so if you need to refer to it and let me know, that's fine. So the First Amendment that comes from the road lighting install and upgrade, it's not funded every year, it has about 250,000 and then a similar, then a $0 a year and then back up again, then a $0 a year, so it kind of comes and goes. Would we need to fill in one of those $0 years in the future or would the entire matrix get shifted down one year? Oh, if you have the book there, yeah, it's on page 156 of the book if you have it in front of you.

Sure, no, I would say no in that case. A lot of the times we have leftover funds, we round up, so if we have unused funds due to project, the capacity of staff and the projects that were scheduled, then we won't need to make that shift, so yeah.

So like for instance in 29 there's zero dollars. Like will we need to fill that in to make up stuff we're not doing next year or?

Not unless the programs have changed. The program itself would change or I don't know if that one's, let me take a picture. I don't think that one's a match with grant funding. I don't know if you. I'll have to look that one up quick. 4-1-0-4. Ms. Ness would have suggested that and we would have already addressed that, but that is a good question. That would be for the road lighting install. I don't think it's a federal or state match.

No, typically we haven't matched with federal funds with the road lighting. There was one time, I think in the last 13 years, that we did get a 50-50 match. There was an energy grant on it, but typically those aren't the same type of grants that we get like when we did Melby Street and Fairfax Street and stuff like that. This is more or less a maintenance program because we have all the lights that are on Claremont Avenue, Hastings Way 93, and this is a... basically an internal maintenance account for us to replace those light bulbs is what it was originally set up for, although we do use it to help with decorative lighting like on Barstow Street and Graham Avenue when we have those projects. But yeah, it's typically not used to leverage against federal funds for the lighting programs.

So basically not any concerns about having to backfill in the future years if we divert it this year?

No, the only caveat would be is if there was funding, we would shift things around like that. If there was a rebate program, for example, but Ms. Ness didn't feel the need to move anything, so it'll just be not addressing it that year.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Okay.

I think that's all our questions from council, so thank you, Director Winters. So we now can take public discussion from the folks that have signed up, and then we'll move to people that maybe didn't get a chance to sign up. So the first on our list is Susan Wolfgram. Thank you.

Good evening again, Council President Gregor and members of the City Council. I am still Susan Wolfgram and my comments represent the core team perspective of the Joan Affordable Housing Task Force. Please refer to my extended comments that were sent on Saturday which includes our original asks. Since June 22nd, we have had conversations with council members and community members regarding an amendment to the Flexible Housing Initiative that demonstrates an understanding of the urgent need to lift the initiative to a level one priority and increase the fund, reflecting the tenet that affordable housing is critical economic infrastructure. We appreciate on the behalf of our community that council representatives have motioned to increase the fund. Our disagreement is found in the fragmentation of the proposed increase. In response to the two current proposed motions, we recommend a revised motion combining the two and keeping all funding in the Flexible Housing Initiative Fund under the purview of the Housing Opportunities Commission, or HOC. Our recommended motion to amend the 2027 to 2031 Capital Improvement Plan by adding $500,000 in 2027 to Project 434-029 lbe flexible housing initiative for a total of 750 000 this fund will designate 250 000 as a dedicated set aside for time sensitive proposals the total remains the same as well as the designated reductions again please see our extended comments for additional context for the rationale in keeping the total funding under the purview of hawk which cannot be represented in this short time frame resurrecting a previous housing fund the investments in affordable housing is unnecessary and duplicative it fragments the fund and it chips away at the integrity and weakens the purpose of hawk we understand from conversations with council members that this fund would be dedicated to time sensitive proposals that need to be expedited exceptions to the traditional process of proposal review HAWC can include in their process in expedited review application. This is common practice. We also understand that this fund may direct proposals to staff for review. We created HAWC to not have staff in a non-transparent way public budget funds make decisions on how to use these funds there are many reasons why city staff should not be the ones reviewing affordable housing project proposals with public funds the primary reasons rely on objectivity specialized expertise and avoiding conflicts of interest please see our extended comments the public trust can be eroded without a clear separation between public fund oversight and staff decision making on these funds. In closing, we urge you to maintain the integrity of HOC in the review of all funding proposals and amend the two motions to one motion for all reasons stated. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We have a question from Council Member Werthmann.

Well, it's a follow up. But I appreciate your comments this evening. But if I remember, decision making, essentially, while it started with staff in the past when we had this fund, it would, always come to council, if I remember correctly, for a final approval in that expedited fashion and still provide public comment and input through that process. Maybe I misheard your statement, but I wanted to be sure to clarify what I remember the process being.

We just see no reason to resurrect an old fund for all the reasons that I've stated without repeating myself. Okay. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Next we have Julian Emerson.

Good evening again, council members and city staff. Julian Emerson, 519 Chauncey Street. And I back. I'm sorry.

Point of order, Mr. President.

The timer.

Thank you.

I'll be fast. You shouldn't, but yes. So I'm a member of the Jonah Affordable Housing Task Force, as many of you know, and I support what Susan just said. We shared and have discussed this at some length. And I'll spare you my letter I wrote about this. A lot of it sounds a lot like Susan's, right? I'll talk a little bit, though, about my experience with this topic, that being affordable housing initiatives. And I understand, especially given that not everything has rolled out of hock, as we heard a little bit ago, as fast as some folks would like. So I understand and I actually admire attempts to kind of be creative and come up with different ways to spend the money. That's how I think, too. But my experience has taught me that I think it's really important to have the folks making the decision, people who have expertise in affordable housing, from the broad range of perspectives that HOC has, and they're trying to get an even more broad range. I think it's really important that they ultimately be the clearinghouse. I think you can do the same things that you guys are proposing with this, do it through HOC. I've been reminded recently that other well-intended groups and personalities don't see affordable housing from a true affordable housing lens oftentimes. It's not their fault. It's just not their background. It's not their expertise. So if you really want to have robust affordable housing ideas come out of this, I would recommend that it remain with HOC. You can give them direction. You can do this same stuff, but I would recommend that it remain within HOC, that it flow from them. That's all I got.

Thank you.

No questions? All right. Thank you, guys. So thank you. Next, we have Mara Landrick. Welcome, Mara.

Hello, council members, president. I'm Mara Landrick, and I live at 451 Lincoln Avenue here in Eau Claire. I am the co-founder of the Lived Experience Advisory Board of Eau Claire. I'm a core member of the Jonah Affordable Housing Task Force and the Housing Our Neighbors Planning Collaborative. I'm also someone who's experienced homelessness firsthand. I am here in support of maintaining the integrity of the Flexible Housing Initiative and the Housing Opportunities Commission. I understand there are two motions before you tonight. From my perspective, I support combining those ideas into one stronger approach by keeping the funding together under the flexible housing initiative while allowing a dedicated set aside for time sensitive proposals within that same fund. That strengthens the system instead of dividing it. And I'll be honest, I'm not here because I'm not an expert on municipal budgets. I'm here because I live the reality that those budgets affect. When I was homeless, I learned that housing isn't just about getting someone through the front door. It's about having a system that can respond to real people with real barriers while remaining fair, transparent, and accountable. The Housing Opportunities Commission was created for exactly that purpose. If we already have a process that brings together expertise, community voices, and accountability, then we should strengthen that process rather than creating another one alongside of it. Housing is not just another line item. Housing is the foundation that makes everything else possible. It's employment, it's physical and mental health, it's children's success in school, it's safety, it's dignity. I also support adding equitable development principles to the Riverbend and Cord redevelopment plans. As Eau Claire grows, we should make sure growth benefits everyone, including the people who already live here. Development should create opportunity, not displacement. And I'd like to leave you with this. The tables I've sat at where people talked about homelessness, I've also slept in places where those conversations never reach. Every decision you make in this room eventually becomes someone's reality. The question isn't whether Eau Claire will grow, because it will. The question is whether the people who are struggling the most will still have a place in the community they call home. And I hope the answer is yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Next on the list is Amanda Babb.

Good evening, Council President Gragert and members of the City Council. I, too, am still Amanda Babb, address 862 East Grand Avenue, program coordinator of the Eau Claire Tenant Landlord Resource Center and core member of the Jonah Affordable Housing Task Force. And I'm commenting this evening regarding the Flexible Housing Initiative. Our original asks were, one, that the Flexible Housing Fund be increased to $1 million each of the five years to total $5 million. and two, that the Flexible Housing Initiative be reassigned to a level one from a level two. The initiative directly reflects the City of Eau Claire's strategic plan goal, number one, to support economic prosperity for all with diverse creative economic development and inclusive housing options. i support the recommendation made by our co-chair susan wolfgram that the two separate motions be revised into one motion that it be clearly written that the flexible housing initiative be reassigned to a level one priority and as a level one priority that beginning in 2028 the minimum funding point be one million dollars per year want to acknowledge that i appreciate the council's interest in making this fund more responsive to a time sensitive housing opportunity affordable housing financing often moves quickly and having the ability to act on shovel ready projects is important where i differ is in how we accomplish that goal the flexible housing initiative was intentionally designed to be flexible creative and responsive to the changing housing needs of our community. It already falls under the Housing Opportunities Commission, whose purpose is to review housing proposals and make recommendations to the city council. Rather than creating or reviving a separate housing fund, I encourage the council to keep the funding together under one flexible housing initiative and create an expedited review process within HAWC for time-sensitive proposals. keeping the funds together preserves the purpose and integrity of the housing opportunity commission it also provides one transparent process for applicants community members and the council to understand how public housing dollars are being invested HAWC was created because affordable housing decisions benefit from specialized knowledge and community representation. Its members bring experience in housing affordability, housing insecurity, and community needs, and they evaluate projects using objective scoring criteria. That perspective complements the important work of city staff whose expertise is in planning, permitting, infrastructure, and code enforcement. maintaining that separation separation is good governance it allows hawk to evaluate which projects will have the greatest community impact while allowing city staff to focus on implementation and regulatory oversight it also helps ensure that funding decisions remain transparent consistent and grounded and clearly established criteria Ultimately, I believe we can accomplish both goals, responding quickly to time-sensitive opportunities while preserving the transparent community-based review process that the Housing Opportunities Commission was created to provide. A single flexible housing initiative with an expedited review option gives us both efficiency and accountability. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right, we have one more person who has signed up for this to speak during this agenda item, and that's Christina Thrun. Hello again.

Hello. Christina Thrun, 2832 Fifth Street. I want to thank very much City Council Member Shane and Serrano for putting together this amendment and coming forth, because this is something I know that's been talked about and trying to get more money into affordable housing for quite a while. And I do encourage you to approve these amendments to move additional funding into affordable housing. I know it's not to the level that Jonah has proposed, but it's a step in that direction and it gives us more money into trying to address the challenges of getting more people into housing. I am going to though echo the what you've already been hearing, that I do think Hawk is aligned to be able to distribute these funds. And I think there's a lot of opportunities to try to improve and streamline the process. I will tell you that as a commissioner of Hawk, I along with others have been frustrated sometimes about the slow process. Obviously nothing in city government works very quickly, but I think there's some ways that we could become more flexible and more urgent with what we can do. Yeah, nothing, I know it doesn't work quickly, I know. But I think there's more things that we could do to try to move things along a little bit more quickly as well. And I think that to what others have stated, Hawk is positioned, we do have a way to review projects and stuff. We already have that in place, procedures to be able to do that. And I know that it would be great to be able to be able to award more funds and be able to look at what are the best projects to do so for the city of Eau Claire.

Tremendous, thank you. So that concludes like the list that I have of people that signed up. Is there anyone else from the from the council chamber from the gallery that would like to speak to the capital improvement plan to this agenda item. So we will move on then to the public comment period and I'll just give an explanation of this opportunity for public input for items that are not on our agenda today. This is for things that we did not already cover today. Could be items tomorrow that we didn't already cover. So this public comment period is meant for people who live within the city of Eau Claire or are going to school here, own property or a place of business in the city of Eau Claire. And it's really to speak on issues or ideas or concerns of citywide application. You'll have up to three minutes to speak, so one minute less than our previous items. And you may only speak once So the lighting system will be such that the first two minutes will be green and then it'll switch to yellow for the last minute and then I'll go to flashing red when you need to finish up your comments. Also, this time is not for personal remarks of city personnel, elected officials, or any person affiliated with the city. Council members are not allowed to ask questions or comment during this time. And this time will be limited to 20 minutes unless the council chooses to extend the time by a two thirds vote. And I do have a sign up of people that have expressed a desire to speak. And so I'll read through those names. And then if there are others that didn't get a chance to sign up, I will offer opportunity for that. So the first person on my list is Sarah Pelasek. Is that right?

Pelasek?

Yeah. You're welcome to come up.

Hello, my name is Sarah Plaszczak, an Eau Claire City resident on 1906 Sherwood Boulevard. I was born and raised in Eau Claire and have lived in the city of Eau Claire my entire life. Growing up, I enjoyed the natural surroundings and the quietness of the city. I chose to stay in the city because it was affordable at the time, safe, and easy to commute. I am worried that with the continued expansion, we will lose the character of Eau Claire and become the new Twin Cities or Madison with an increased cost of living, crime, and pollution. I'm speaking in opposition of the City of Eau Claire's purchase agreement with the Seuss-Tim Trust for the purchase of eight parcels of land, 223.7 acres, located along County Highway EE and the Town of Union for the price of $1,750,000. land is non-contiguous to the land currently owned by the city and outside of the city limits as well as outside the ssa boundary so it makes sense to become an industrial park according to wisconsin state statute 62.22 the governing body of any city may purchase property within or outside the city for parks recreation and other public purposes they may acquire real property within or contiguous to the city for industrial sites. In this case, the city is looking to purchase the land outside of the city limits and not contiguous to the city for an industrial park. 111 acres of developable space is designated to provide opportunities for new industrial site development to supply the Gateway Industrial Park, which would only be allowed through the Wisconsin state statute if the land were located within or contiguous to the city. Neither is true. The 223.7 acres is more than 10,000 feet outside the city limits, which is more than two miles outside of any property within the city. Two miles is not just across the road from the city boundary and is not anywhere near the city limits. According to Wisconsin State Statute 66.0223, territory owned by and lying near but not necessarily contiguous to a city may be annexed to a city by ordinance enacted by the common council to the city, provided that in the case of non-contiguous territory, the use of the territory by the city is not contrary to any town or county zoning regulation. The future land use map for the Town of Union designates the 223.7 acres as RL, rural lands, which would not align with the industrial usage. Furthermore, just over 113 acres is zoned AP, agricultural preservation, which is established to preserve and protect areas best suited for agricultural forestry or open spaces used by minimizing fragmentation of contiguous agricultural or forest lands for the benefit and use of current and future generations. The remaining acres are zone A1 agricultural residential intended to preserve the area for farming or agricultural use and minimize urban sprawl. An industrial park does not match the future land use map nor the zoning for the land to be purchased by the city.

Thank you for your comments. Next on the list is Nathan Pelchek.

That's my wife, if you haven't figured that out. Hello, my name is Nathan Pleszek. I'm a current resident of the City of Eau Claire, 1906 Sherwood Boulevard. I am speaking in opposition of the City of Eau Claire's purchase agreement with the Seuss-Tim Trust for the purchase of eight parcels of land, 223.7 acres, located along County Highway EE in the town union for the price of 1.75 million. The eight parcels of land lie with one of the largest wetland areas in Eau Claire County. Much of this land and the majority of the lands to the south and east are made up of wetlands, defined through the DNR as environmentally sensitive areas. Wetlands are nurseries for fish and wildlife, purifiers for lakes, rivers, and groundwater, and a storage for floodwaters. They're also playgrounds for birders, hikers, hunters, and paddlers, and a storehouse for carbon, one of the greenhouse gases fueling climate change. It wouldn't make sense to purchase this land This land, if we were looking to expand the industrial park in the future. I-94 is directly to the north. The Dunn County line sits adjacent to the western edge of the property, and land to both the east and south show mapped wetlands throughout the majority of the land, as well as streams. The cost of reconstructing the county highway, adding sewer and water lines, electricity, et cetera, would astronomically... would be astronomical for our current taxpayers. Where would the sewer and water lines be routed to reach the 223.7 acres? Parcels located to the east of the land are wetlands, which are defined by the DNR as ESAs, or environmentally sensitive areas, and avoided when adding sewer and water lines, especially in the case of so much contiguous wetland. Additionally, the 223.7 acres is currently outside of the SSA sewer service area. How would the land be able to be serviced for city sewer water since not only outside of the SSA but more than two miles from current city sewer and water lines? Furthermore, a Class 1 trout stream is located on the western portion of the land, and it borders the Elk Creek Fishery, which is owned and protected by the Wisconsin DNR. The tributaries to Elk Creek flow through a mixture of tag elder, open meadow, and upland woodlands important to Elk Creek. Elk Creek flows to Elk Creek Lake, which in turn continues to flow down the southern portion of Elk Creek into the Chippewa River. Developing and industrializing this area will have lasting negative consequences impacting future generations down the line. Why are we choosing this piece of land? Are we looking to bring in a data center? That's obviously a question. Why was only about half the land delineated by Ayers Associates? I saw they said 11 acres were wetland, but that's because they only delineated half the property. We, city taxpayers, continue to spend money on so many new projects, including new land and development, while our current infrastructure is depleting. City residents continue to complain about the deterioration of our roads, especially side roads, and the number of potholes within our city. Lastly, there has been no communication with the city of Eau Claire to the town of Union staff or any of the neighboring landowners. Why haven't the town or the neighboring residents been notified? Where's the communication and transparency? Where's the collaboration between the city and towns?

Thank you for sharing your comments. Next on the list is John Myers.

Welcome. My name is John Myers. I'm a lifelong resident of Eau Claire, except for my time in the service. 18 months in the service, 13 months of it that was in Vietnam. I'm speaking in opposition of the Eau Claire spending $1,750,000 for the purchase of 237 acres along County Highway E, the town of Union. They're already going bankrupt. You know, you got all this money you gotta spend. Come over on my street. I live on Hemlock Lane. It's all torn up. You can't patch that and you got money to spend on this? I love it in Eau Claire. What do you want to be, the Twin Cities? I don't understand this. You got all this money to spend. I love it in Eau Claire and you want to be the Twin Cities. What do you want to build a data center here? Are you gonna tell the people in Eau Claire what you're spending this money for? Be honest with the people. What are you gonna tell the people of Duncone? You wanna buy everything up around here? You already did this to the town of Washington. You got this, you build this, You buy this land up in the town of Washington, and then you tell the people in the city of Clare, you gotta, oh, you buy all these houses up, and we gotta, oh, we gotta provide all this money for expanding this, and then we gotta, oh. We've got to buy all the services for expanding to city services, to sewer and water, out to all this. You don't tell the people, city people of Eau Claire, what we have to pay for all this money we spend for this? What, you can't fix my road? Hey, take a drive out to my street tomorrow. See what it looks like. Take the next street over. You can't spend money on that. You can spend $1,750,000 on this. Tell the people of Eau Claire what you're spending this money for. It's not even legal. Put it in Eau Claire paper what you're spending this money for. Be honest with the people. Tell us what you're spending this money for. I can look you in the eyes. No, I'm sitting there looking at you. It's just like I got treated when I came back from Vietnam. Same thing. I can look in your eyes. Thank you, Mr. Myers. Appreciate it. I can look in your eyes. Think about that tonight when you go home to sleep. Just think about it. Think about the money you're spending on this stuff.

Please wrap up your comments soon. Appreciate your time for coming in tonight. I want to make sure we have time for some other speakers.

Drive down on my street tonight. See what it looks like. Okay, thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak during our public comment period? Because we've exhausted the list of three people that have signed up. So I just want to offer the opportunity. Anyone else? OK, then we'll close the public comment period. And appreciate everybody sticking around for that and for all the agenda items today. I'm going to read a statement about moving into closed session. Upon a motion duly made and carried, the city council may go into closed session to confer with the city attorney, who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the city council with respect to litigation in which it is involved, which is permitted in closed session pursuant to S19.851 of the Wisconsin statutes. The city attorney will provide an update on the status of lawsuits filed by Mayo Clinic and Marshfield Clinic claiming exemption from property tax. Do I have a motion to go into closed session? So moved. Second. So we have a motion from Councilmember Brewster and seconded by Councilmember Reed to go into closed session. City Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Brewster. Aye. McGregor.

Aye.

Johnson. Aye. Villalba. Aye. Miller? Aye. Orland?

Aye.

Otto? Aye. Reed? Aye. Schoen?

Aye.

Serrano?

Aye.

Werthmann? Aye.

All right. And that passes unanimously. And we'll take a five-minute break before we begin the closed session. And I appreciate everybody sticking around.

Thank you.